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Healthy Cacao Nib Energy Bar

On a recent holiday I discovered Lara bars, they are a great snack bar, vegan, gluten-free, refined-sugar-free and really yummy. When you’re on holiday it is so good to find something you can put in your bag and have when you need a snack.

Like all good things I eat, I try to recreate them when I am home in my kitchen. The Lara bar is simple it is dried fruits, nuts and seeds all ground up together. I wanted to make one with less dried fruit to keep the fructose levels down and to have more nutritious seeds in it and to make it high in Omega 3 fatty acids.

This bar is super easy, just put everything in a good blender, food processor and blend until dough forms then press into a tin, fridge, then cut up into bar pieces. Then you have an easy on the go snack that is packed full of goodness. This bar is a really good energy bar providing with 4 g of complete protein which is 9% of daily required intake and many key nutrients (far more than a bought Lara bar has) 10% B1, 7% B2, 4% B3, 7% B6, 3% Folate, 9% Vitamin E, 15% Vitamin K, 7% Calcium, 37% Copper, 8% Iron, 19% Magnesium, 29% Manganese, 16% Phosphorus, 3% Potassium 156% Selenium, 10% Zinc. In total one bar has around 150kcal.

One of the best health aspects of this bar is the healthy fatty acid content of the bar. See my article on Omega 3 to understand why having good omega 3 to 6 ratio is important to reduce inflammation in the body. One bar has all your daily-recommended amount of Omega 3 (even though we should have more than this per day) with 1.2g and only 2.6g of Omega 6.

Place all the ingredients into a high powered blender or food processor. Blitz until the mixture forms a dough. If you fancy a non-chocolate version (or you don’t have nibs) you can omit, and have 2 tbs pumpkin seeds, 2 tbs sunflower seeds instead. You’ll also only need 8 prunes and add an extra tbs of cinnamon.

Line a cookie tray with grease proof paper, tip the dough onto the paper. Dampen your hands with water and use your hands to shape the mixture, you can make balls or I tend to press it all together making it ¾ inch thick leave it to harden in the fridge and then cut into bars.

Keeps best in the fridge but lasts all day without getting to crumbled out of the fridge.

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